Comments

I have been trying to keep an eye on MO, but Jason was certainly better at that. I am finding a bit more time to work on MO, but not a lot. Today I am working on a description of what Mushroom Observer does for some of my colleagues within the EOL with the hope of one day integrating the two websites more closely which could mean better support for feature requests and bug fixes. Ideally it will also allow the easy creation of other taxon and/or location specific observation platforms. Once I get the description in a reasonable state, I’ll send it out to the MO mailing list and the MO facebook page for others to comment on.

My next priority is to update the software stack that MO is running on which is woefully out of date. I’m hoping this will make a significant difference in terms of performance and improve our ability in the future to do updates.

Sadly, there has been no progress on the non-profit status of CDMR, but we remain hopeful.

First of all, can we consider this to mean the triumphant return of direct admin/dev involvement in MO? Pivotal Tracker has been dead quiet for some time now. The list of fixes/tweaks/potential new features, of which this is but one example, is staggeringly long. Hopefully a 501c3 approval for the CDMR will enable the influx of funds to finally make all the behind the scenes work an at least partially paid exercise.

On the subject of pink Pleurotus, at least two species have been described from the Neotropics; P. ostreatoroseus and P. djamor var. roseus, which are more than likely synonyms, but I don’t yet have access to the original description of P. ostreatoroseus to verify this with 100% certainty. Somewhere in this typical taxonomic mire lies the source of all cultivated pink oysters. It couldn’t hurt to start scoping these and other cultivars to see whether or not the micro matches up with the trade name(s).

As far as Collection Location tagging, a start toward working out the nuances of wild vs. “less than wild” could be as simple as a flagging system. If the community and/or the observer believes, for whatever reason, that the expression of a given ob on a species’ distribution map would be misleading, the observation could be flagged accordingly, with the option of finer sorting in the future. This conversation raises interesting questions about the delimitations of concepts like ‘wild,’ ‘cultivated,’ ‘naturalized,’ ‘invasive,’ etc. Thankfully, I can think of no better tool than MO to discuss, interpret and organize that information.

In my view you should click ‘Collection Location’ if the mushroom was collected there. This applies to both wild and cultivated specimens. This makes it clear when you don’t really know where the specimen came from. The idea of differentiating between cultivated specimens and wild specimens is a good idea, but still a bit tricky. For example, I believe Phil Carpenter only started getting Cantharellus californicus in his yard in Soquel after he started throwing trimmings from wild collections out there so are those ‘wild’ or ‘cultivated’? On the other hand, I’ve found Stropharia rugosoannulata growing in mulch on Cape Cod which was probably not planted intentionally so they are probably ‘wild’, but if I bury a grow kit I got from Fungi Perfecti in a mulch bed in my yard are they now ‘wild’ or ‘cultivated’? Shiitake present an even more subtle case since to the best of my knowledge they have never ‘escaped’, but are often grown outside on local wood.

What can be decided clearly is if the location recorded for the observation is the location where the mushroom grew. In my view that is what this checkbox should indicate.

It might be reasonable to have a checkbox that says “Do not add to distribution map” which is basically up to the opinion of the observer or perhaps an “Outlier” checkbox that any user can click that removes that observation from the distribution map.

In all of these cases it is definitely worthwhile putting in notes such as “Grown from a bag created at the Los Angeles Mycological Society mushroom fair” which indicate unusual growing conditions.

That makes sense to not show shiitake growing all over North America as per your example. However, in this case P. djamor IS naturally occurring here as well… although the native one is white not pink.

That would throw the occurrence map off. It would show that the mushroom is growing in a location where it may not naturally occur. It isn’t so useful to see an occurrence map for a species and have it littered with cultivated observations.

If you want to see a map of naturally occurring Lentinula edodes, that wouldn’t be possible with the cultivated observations being included on the occurence map.

Unless, I’m mistaken, the only instances which call for un-checking the ‘Is Collection Location’ box is when the observation was made in a location other than where the specimen was found. Photographs of show specimens or herbarium collections fit this exception. Nathan? Jason?